Description

National Book Award FinalistShortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker PrizeFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of "The Namesake "comes an extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers: a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death.
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan--charismatic and impulsive--finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother's political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America.
But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family's home, he goes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind--including those seared in the heart of his brother's wife.
Masterly suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, "The Lowland "is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity. It is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers. "From the Hardcover edition."show more

Review quote

"A subtle but devastating tale of two brothers coming of age in 1960s Calcutta . . . The themes of this beautifully written novel may be grand--love, revolution, desertion--but it's an intimate tale that offers no easy answers." --"Parade"
"Compelling . . . beautiful. A family saga that finds its roots in a 1967 Calcutta rebellion [but] extends its reach to present-day Rhode Island. The long-awaited follow-up to her ravishing first novel, "The Namesake, "justifies its lengthy gestation. The story develops like a rip in a piece of fabric that keeps tearing: a gripping meditation on absence, alienation and loss . . . Exquisitely written and deeply moving." --Sophie Harris, "Time Out New York"
"It's been a few weeks since I finished "The Lowland, "and my head and heart are still with the book. The novel moves back and forth in time and takes on different points of view, which allow readers to see how anger and betrayal redound through the generations . . . "The Lowland" dwells in complex territory [and its] insights point toward an unspoken question: Is it irresponsible--or even criminal--to risk your life for a political cause that may not be realized in your lifetime? "The Lowland" is a stylistic achievement and marks a shift in Lahiri's writing. As always, the novel is full of sharp insights about marriage and parenthood, politics and commitment. It is the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it." --Julie Hakim Azzam, "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"
"Lahiri's new novel begins in the manner of Flaubert . . . It is her big novel: possessed of historical moment and reach. But for the most part, history is only the element in which the characters' lives unfold, and this allows Lahiri to exercise her own special talent. She is capable of great elegance, and here, her subject is the failure of relationships between characters, and the ways in which people hold back from living their lives . . . Lahiri writes with great emotional precisshow more

About Jhumpa Lahiri

JHUMPA LAHIRI is the author of "Interpreter of Maladies," awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award; "The Namesake"; and "Unaccustomed Earth," a #1 "New York Times" bestseller and a "New York Times Book Review "Best Book of the Year. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and 2 children.show more